Private 15300, 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards
By the time war broke out Horace and his family – father Joseph, mother Harriet and three siblings – were living in Stafford but, apart from his mother, they had all been born in Handsacre. Horace was working as a clerk and, like his two younger brothers, joined up to do his bit. There are, so far, records of nine Waltho children from the Parish who joined up and three of them were killed.
Horace fought in France and was involved in some of the bitterest fighting, and he met his end on 17th September 1917 in the Battle of Passchendale. This was fought for control of the wood covered ridges to the East of Ypres which by that time had been reduced to tree stumps, battered tree trunks and miles of barbed wire. The woods on the ridge were rechristened as Battle Wood, Sherwood Forest and Sanctuary Wood and it is in Artillery Wood Cemetery where Horace is commemorated. He is also remembered on Stafford War Memorial.